Volunteer Board member to support growth of our CIC

What will you be doing?

The need Technology reaches directly into lives, bypassing parents, carers, and friends. With the benefits come risks, especially for the young or those who are vulnerable in some way. That’s why online safety goes far beyond scams and hacks, and includes anxiety, mental health problems, and any social problem where technology is involved.  Promoters of technology are much less interested in risk than in making enormous amounts of money. It’s up to families and society in general to take an interest. In the long run, they’ll deal with the more serious negative effects. We want to be part of the change, and to help accelerate it.   Our work Our work is in two parts: first, we’re firmly based in the community where we seek partnerships with social sector groups and organisations. Working this way allows us to spread the e-safety message further and faster.  Essentially, we want to be a resource that anyone with a pastoral or family concern can use to help those they care about. We also want their input on how useful we are, so that we can keep our e-safety information relevant. We support in various ways: for example, by running presentations and workshops, 10 min Zoom sessions at coffee mornings, training frontline staff.At the back of all this is the second component of our operating model: our web site, directing users to e-safety information. We built it from scratch. This took considerable effort and resources, but it gives us the flexibility to adapt it perfectly to our needs.  We’ve tuned it to load/respond quickly. The database behind it makes edits and updates easy. We run semi-automated reports to manage content. We’ve established enterprise-standard release and maintenance processes.  Where we are/need to be We have a grant-funded pilot in Hounslow. To begin scaling up we must to get our volunteer program running. Volunteers will need induction and management.  We’ve structured our financing to ensure that the Company is stable and we plan to substantially increase our funding and our work this year. We’re developing workflows so that we operate efficiently and cost-effectively.  Your experience/commitment You’ll need at least 3 years’ experience as a director. Board meetings (including pre- and post- meeting actions) should take less than 18 hours per year. Any deeper involvement is up to you.

What are we looking for?

Experience of company governance is the only requirement for this role, although experience of managing volunteers, delivering services in the community, education, safeguarding, marketing, and media could all be useful.

What difference will you make?

By joining us, you’ll bring our board up to minimum complement— not just improving our governance, but making it easier to obtain certain grants and essential services. That’s a big contribution and you needn’t feel obliged to get involved beyond your board governance role at meetings.  On the other hand, if you want to share your insights with us, there are plenty of interesting things going on. Our expertise is in technical design and the use of technology to catalogue and present information. We have competence in in copywriting and marketing.  That leaves plenty of room for driving strategy in the following areas:

Volunteers: recruiting and managing volunteers is a major challenge for all non-profits.  Partnerships: Finding, training and co-ordination of front line workers in organisations that help our target groups  Education: schools could have great potential if we shape our offer the right way  Content: If you have specialist knowledge of online safety or you are a parent or carer you can guide us on how to make our content relevant and interesting  Media: Reaching the audience is a major challenge and how we use social and other media is a key decision  Web Site Design: All our work is pointless if the site isn’t appealing and easy to use. Can we improve the user experience?